


Hold fast

by jauneclair



Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/M, Sweet touches, set immediately after they defeat Rogers in 4.10, surprise ending (I hope), three-way hand-holding (after a fashion)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 17:12:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13575177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jauneclair/pseuds/jauneclair
Summary: "Mr. Silver was…well, worried would be an understatement," Flint rumbled, quiet. She turned and looked over her shoulder, breaking apart from Flint: John was still standing where he'd been, a frantic, tumultuous look in his eyes that he could never fail to hide from her.





	Hold fast

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted to tumblr.
> 
> Silvermadi with a healthy dose of flint+madi brotp, set during 4x10 directly after the ship battle when Madi emerges from below-decks and sees Flint. My desire to write this won out over any need for historical accuracy, but I did try to do some research. 
> 
> neither angsty nor explicit ~~unless you read this and then think about the rest of the 4x10 continuing as per canon~~

Flint descended from the stairs and Madi met him halfway across the deck, in an embrace that had him pausing a moment before he raised his arms to circle her shoulders. She clung fast to him for another moment, arms wrapped around his waist, the sulfur smell of gunsmoke sharp, before lifting her head.

"You did it," she said.

Flint squeezed her shoulders. "We did it."

Madi hummed in contentment, cheek still resting against Flint's chest, content to linger in their victory for a moment longer.

"Mr. Silver was…well, worried would be an understatement," Flint rumbled, quiet. She turned and looked over her shoulder, breaking apart from Flint: John was still standing where he'd been, a frantic, tumultuous look in his eyes that he could never fail to hide from _her._ "I think you should let him go and take care of you."

"Yes, I should." Flint nodded, but before he could turn away and return to ship duties, she caught him by the sleeve of his bloodstained shirt. "I would like to ask you to do something for me. I will understand if you refuse."

She stood up on her toes and he bent his head forehead, so that she might whisper it in his ear.

A thin furrow formed in Flint's brow. "I wouldn't presume, Madi."

"You are not presuming," she said. "I have asked it of you."

She watched as Flint's frown worked itself out: he glanced over her shoulder at Silver, and she could nearly hear the thoughts turning in his mind.

"Alright," he said, stroking his beard. "Discuss it with Mr. Silver, though I doubt he'll have objections. I'll join you both in the captain's cabin shortly."

"Thank you," she said, squeezing his arm before she released it and turned back to John.

John helped her from the _Eurydice_ to the _Colonial Dawn_ and then into the captain's cabin, whereupon he fetched a basin of water and a shirt that now had no owner and began wiping the soot from her face. They sat side-by-side in the captain's bunk.

The cool wetness of her face was like a clean oasis on an otherwise dry island: she had not been clean in so long. It reminded her that she was parched; John gave her something to drink and then she closed her eyes and ears, against the violence of the men and the sea that still wavered around them. These were her battle scars - she had worn them since the day Eleanor died. John tilted her head upwards, the left side of her face enveloped by his strong, broad hand, and drew the cloth gently over her right cheekbone.

"Thank you," she said. The cloth dropped into the basin with a splash. Even before she opened her eyes, she knew what she would read in John's eyes, because she felt it in the way both his hands shook now, as they both cradled her face.

"Madi," he said, blue eyes huge and red-ringed, and kissed her again.

She kissed back, more firmly then she had before, below the deck of the _Eurydice_ : now that they had emerged into the light, she was no longer afraid.

He began, between kisses, "All the things I've done, you'll never - "

"Don't say it," she said, kissing him back to silence him for a moment. The broke apart, staring wild-eyes at each other for a moment. "Please don't tell me what you would give up for me. I know - I know. We are here now, we have won - that is what matters."

John curled in to her, his forehead resting against her shoulder as his frame shook. Before she could wrap her arms around him, there was a knock on the cabin door.

"A moment, please," she called. John scrubbed his face on the arm of his shirt.

After another moment, Flint entered. He stood flanked in the doorway by a halo of light from the deck and he closed it before stepping inside, a book tucked under one arm. Madi rose, intrigued.

"I found this in the other cabin," Flint said, laying the book open on the table. "But perhaps you want - something else."

"You can't _possibly,_ " John said from behind them, strangled, "be having a discussion of literature _now._ "

One corner of Flint's mouth turned up. "I take it you haven't enlightened him?"

Madi ignored both of them, studying the words on the page. "We will do this," she said. "If he agrees."

"Agrees to what?" John rose up on the crutch now, making his way across the cabin to them. She turned and steadied herself with one hand on her stomach.

"I cannot give you everything," she said. "I cannot for you give up everything. But I can give you what I have ownership of."

"Madi - " John said, stepping forward, his eyes bewildered - until they fell on the pages of the opened book. "Now? You want - now? Are you sure?"

"I am very sure. Are you sure?"

He straightened on his crutch. His eyes suddenly stopped the searching they had been doing since he first saw her.

"I've never been so sure of anything in my life," he said. He quirked his head towards Flint, brow furrowing. "But - Flint…?"

"I have asked him to do this," Madi said, firmly. She looked up at Flint, who offered her a solemn smile. He extended his left hand and she placed her right hand in his. He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze as he reached for John's hand.

"I give this woman to be married unto this man," Flint said. She and John both gasped quietly as he said it, in the same moment placing Madi's hand in John's. He held both of their hands in between his own.

She watched John watch her. He had a soul she could look at forever.

"Now, repeat after me," Flint said, still holding their hands, craning his neck to read from _The Book of Common Prayer._ "I, John Silver - "

"I, John Silver - "

**Author's Note:**

> According to _The Book of Common Prayer_ from 1559: _"And the Minister receivyng the woman at her father or frendes handes, shall cause the man to take the woman by the right hand, and so either to geve their trouth to other."_


End file.
